The Ascent
' |image= |series= |production=40510-507 |producer(s)= |story= |script= Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe |director= Allan Kroeker |imdbref=tt0708614 |guests=Max Grodénchik as Rom, Aron Eisenberg as Nog |previous_production=Things Past |next_production=Rapture |episode=DS9 S05E9 |airdate= 25 November 1996 |previous_release=(DS9) Things Past (Overall) Star Trek First Contact |next_release=(DS9) Rapture (Overall) The Q and the Grey |story_date(s)=Unknown (2373) |group="N"}} |previous_story=Things Past |next_story=Rapture }} =Summary= Odo is dispatched to escort Quark to a Federation Grand Jury hearing, an eight-day journey away. Halfway to their destination, Quark hears a strange buzzing noise. When he and Odo investigate, they find a bomb aboard the runabout. They contain the explosion in a transporter beam, but the runabout is still severely damaged. Forced to crash-land on a frozen, desolate planet, Odo and Quark learn that they lost their communications system, their replicator, and most of their rations in the explosion. They are left with a horrifying choice — starve to death or freeze to death — when Quark has an idea. Taking the runabout's subspace transmitter, he suggests they haul the heavy piece of equipment up an enormous mountain, where the atmosphere may be thin enough to send a signal for help. Sharing one set of cold-weather gear between them, they make their way toward the mountain, bickering all the way. Quark is ready to give up when Odo encourages him with an estimate of six hours before reaching the top of the mountain. But Odo is wrong. As they clear the trees, they come to the edge of a steep cliff overlooking a deep valley. The mountain is actually days away. With no other choice, Quark and Odo make their way down into the valley toward the mountain. The pair argues throughout the journey, even as they finally begin to climb the mountain. Words soon escalate into a shoving match, and they wind up sliding down the mountainside. While Quark is unhurt, Odo's leg is broken. Quark tries to drag Odo up the mountain, but is soon proves to be too much work for him. Odo insists that Quark leave him behind and continue alone to the top, but Quark, exhausted and hungry, is ready to give up. After Odo tries to take the transmitter himself, broken leg and all, Quark is shamed into resuming his attempt. But when night falls, Odo is still alone, assuming that Quark failed to reach his goal and died. As Odo prepares to do the same, he is suddenly transported off the mountain. He finds himself on the U.S.S. Defiant — where Bashir, Dax, and Worf inform him that Quark indeed made it to the top and was able to signal for help. The longtime adversaries return to Deep Space Nine with an uncomfortable new aspect to their relationship — the fact that Quark saved Odo's life. =Errors and Explanations= Nit Central # Chris Booton (Cbooton) on Saturday, August 31, 2002 - 1:22 am: Where did Quark hear of Fizzbin? Kirk only made up the game to distract the guards in A Piece Of The Action. Did the guards take the few rules Kirk had made up and create a working game? Of course, that would mean that the Iotians must now have space travel. (It actually isn't really that farfetched. IIRC their technology level was comparable to 1920's Earth. In Star Trek time, It been bearly a century since then durring this episode. So they could very well have developed at least basic space technology. And who knows? Bones accidently left his communicator behind, so maybe they reversed engineerd technology from it? It may be a stretch to stay their warp capable, but who knows? Given that from a book, they could translate it and reproduce 1920's Chicago, and even reproduce the slang and guns and cars of that era. From an actuall piece of working technology, who knows what they could do.) LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, August 31, 2002 - 6:58 am: Or the Ferengi visited Sigma Iotia, and picked it up from there. Perhaps the guards used it to trick the Ferengi in a similar manner that Kirk used it to trick them, and the Ferengi, being impressed at the idea of a card game as a medium for deceit, made up their own rules for the game that emphasized this, much as fans have made up their own rules for 3-D chess. Merat on Saturday, August 31, 2002 - 11:38 am: Or they visited the Hynerian empire. According to a FarScape book (House of Cards) Rygel learned to play Fizzbin as a youth :) constanze on Friday, January 09, 2004 - 3:55 am: Of course, Kirk may have used the Fizzbin trick on other planets/ in other situations, too. Or he mentioned it in his log as useful trick for starfleet officers on how to confuse enemies. (In one of the non-canon novels, it is mentioned that Kirk is able to swear creatively by making up new words, which once confused a romulan or klingon commander long enough to solve a crisis better; after that, creative swearing classes were offered at the Starfleet Academy. I rather liked the thought of teaching Starfleet officers creative thinking in addition to simply hard facts.) =Notes= Category:EpisodesCategory:Deep Space Nine